Cohen
by pinkdigi
Summary: There would never be another person for her. [SS oneshot]


**Disclaimer: not mine andnever will be. But a girl can dream, right?**

**My first attempt at an OC fic, don't laugh please!**

**Cohen  
**……………………………………………………………

One thought—one _person_—plagued her mind. He was taking up most of her thoughts lately. She wasn't supposed to feel this way. Not toward him. She couldn't think about him. She couldn't want him, couldn't _need _him. Just couldn't. Plain and simple.

But she did.

Oh _God,_ she did.

She thought of him no matter where she was. No matter what she was doing. No matter how much of her daddy's money she plunked down on a new pair of Jimmy Choo's. Because it just didn't matter. Not anymore.

Day or night, awake or asleep, hot or cold, happy or sad, rain (on the very rare occasion) or shine.

Cohen.

It was always Cohen when the phone rang, always Cohen when there was a knock on the door. And yet, it was never him. It was only in her mind; only in her hopes.

He crept into her mind when she showered, and remembered that she never needed the occasional cold shower until he came along.

She thought of him when she did her hair. He always told her to put it up, but she preferred to wear it down. She liked it down, but truthfully, she liked the fight he put up even more. After a while, though, he would give in and say she would always look beautiful, no matter what. She'd heard it all her life, and believe it or not, it got kind of tiring. But not with him. With him, it was different. It _mattered._

He was there, to her, when she listened to music. It sounded weird, but it was true. Every time she listened to music, it had Cohen written all over it. She remembered with a fond, but fragile smile, the whiny emo music that he used to make her listen to.

She could not get him out of her mind when 'The Valley' was on. He hated it, but she made him watch it anyway (it was a trade-off for her listening to his shitty music). She could still picture his cute, jealous expression that day when she bragged about meeting Grady Bridges. Now that she thought about it, Cohen and Grady were kind of the same. She guessed that Grady was a more famous, richer Cohen. That was hot.

She thought of him every night before she went to sleep. When she rubbed her face into the pillow, and swore she could smell Cohen. It was insane, the pillow had been washed, like, a million times since he last laid on it, but she could smell him just the same. That was the bed where it happened. That was the bed where she gave him her virginity. That mattered, too. She knew that there were rumors about her; she knew everyone thought she had lost it a while ago, but she hadn't. Who cares that the rest of the world didn't know that? She knew it, and Cohen knew it, and that was all that mattered. She could have given it up to any random guy. They all wanted her and she knew it. But she held out. She was waiting for _that _guy, the guy that made her feel dizzy and queasy and weak all over. But in a good way.

Cohen was that guy.

She couldn't help it. She thought about him _so _fucking much. What scared her the most was that she didn't _want _to help it.

He was on her mind so much that she couldn't remember a time when he wasn't. But of course there had been a time. There had been seventeen years of that kind of time.

And all that time, he was worshipping the ground she walked on. She didn't even know his name. He saw her as a goddess; she saw right past him. She was his everything. He was nobody to her.

They couldn't have been more different.

He had a miserable life in Newport Beach; she had an absolutely fabulous one. He was beat up by water polo jocks like Luke; she was hit on by them. She had tons of friends, popularity, parties to attend every Friday night. He had Captain Oats, video games, and comic books. And his shit music, of course.

In a way, that broke her heart. She knew he had it bad, but she never knew just _how_ bad. They had nothing in common. And yet, they were perfect for each other. In every way. They were absolutely, positively, crazy for each other.

How had she never noticed before?

Probably because up until a little over two years ago, Seth Cohen hadn't meant anything to her. She didn't know his name, his favourite colour, his favourite band. She didn't know anything about him. She didn't even think she had seen him before.

Now that she thought about, though, she was sure she had. What will all the Newport functions; it was practically impossible to not know anyone in this town. She'd seen him quite a bit, she guessed, but she never knew his name. She never really bothered to learn it.

She knew who everyone was—everyone _important_, at least. She knew everyone that mattered, everyone who meant something in Newport. That was all the seventeen-year-old Summer needed. That was all the seventeen-year-old Summer cared about.

God, how terribly superficial she was.

But that was Summer, and she was a product of Newport. Just like her Newpsie mother (wherever she was now) had been, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. Well, maybe not _that _far back, but for however long they had been in Newport Beach. Anyway, it had always been like that for her.

She had done some shitty things in her life. That was for sure. She manipulated guys, used them to feel good about herself. She would string them along and make then drool all over her whenever she needed to feel pretty. She littered, she didn't recycle, she never held the door open for strangers, or donated her time to some place that needed it, some place nasty, like a soup kitchen. She was a real bitch.

On top of all that, she was a jealous girl. She had so many great things, things that others would kill to have. She was young, rich, pretty, skinny and popular. So what if she wasn't the smartest thing out there? Guys didn't care about your _grades_.

So what did she have to be jealous of?

In many ways, _she_ was the queen of Harbor High. In many ways, she overshadowed Marissa. In many ways, she was just plain better. She was prettier, more popular with the guys, more wild and funny and outgoing. In many ways, but not in the one way that really mattered. It didn't matter how many guys wanted her, or how many girls wanted to be her.

Coop had people who loved her. Summer didn't. It was plain and simple, black and white, clear as day.

Underneath it all, in spite of how messed up her life was, Coop was loved. Sure, her dad embezzled millions and her mom is a vindictive bitch who shipped her little sister off to boarding school and married Cohen's grandpa, but still. She had a family that loved her. She had a boyfriend. Ever since Summer could remember, Coop always had a boyfriend. Whether it was Eric Winters in the second grade (they used to joke that Summer should have dated him instead, so if they got married she could be Summer Winters) or Luke, or even Chino. Marissa just always had love around her.

Summer attracted lustful stares from horny teenage boys. Coop attracted love from family, friends, and anyone else that crossed her path.

But that still wasn't the worst of it.

The worst thing she had ever done was ignore Seth Cohen. Not only was it bitchy and immature and it really hurt him, but it really hurt her. (Yes, even after everything, she still thought about herself every now and then.) She almost missed out on the most amazing thing ever, being in love and _being _loved, because of social standing. Because Seth Cohen was considered unknown and unpopular and just plain unworthy.

Unworthy? If anything, the rest of the world was unworthy.

The old Summer would have noted that he was from the richest family in Newport, and backed it up by saying that money talks around the O.C.

But the new Summer, the Summer that had been touched by Cohen, would say that he was the sweetest, funniest person she had ever met. She would say that she loved every hair, every freckle, every scar. She would remember how she loved what a smartass he was, even though he sometimes drove her crazy with his incessant sarcasm. She would speak fondly about his stupid, dorky grin, and the way he dressed. She would laugh at the fact that he had less of an ass than _Marissa _did (that was really saying something) and that he was the president of the comic book club. Okay, so she hated the comic book club. But it doesn't matter now. She found a way to love everything Cohen. She loved it all, or at least tried to, because she loved _him_.

She loved him.

That was scary for her, someone who had never really felt love before. But she was sure she felt it for him. There was no mistaking it. It was undeniable. _He _was undeniable.

Yes, as Summer soon came to know, she truly loved Seth Cohen. She loved everything about him, from his curly brown hair all the way down to his Converse shoes. She didn't know when, she didn't know _how_, but she had fallen hard for the "emo geek".

Too bad it was too late.

Maybe she could get over him. She had lived without him for seventeen years and she made it through those. Yes, she had successfully lived for seventeen Cohenless years.

Except she hadn't. Not really.

She hadn't really _lived_ until she was with him. She hadn't lived until the first time they kissed, right after he recited her crappy sixth-grade poem. She hadn't felt truly alive until he stood up on a coffee cart in the middle of Harbor High and declared to everyone that he was in love with her. That was Cohen; he didn't care what others thought. He taught her to be that way, too.

But her favourite memory wasn't any of those. It was burned into her brain, clear as day, kind of like a photograph. She could see them, sitting in her room talking. She could still hear his voice as he said the sweetest thing she had ever heard (and yes, she was including movies and TV in that).

"For me, it's always been you, Summer."

She wished she could have said the same, but she couldn't have. Not without lying, of course. And she would never lie to him. She didn't think she _could _lie to him, and that was a first for her. She could lie to her dad, her teachers, even to Coop. But she couldn't with him. It was different. They were different.

He wanted to be different; he wanted to be someone she could be proud of. But he didn't have to change. She was proud to walk out in public with pale, geeky, unpopular Seth Cohen. In her eyes, he was perfect. Fuck what everyone else thought, because she didn't need everyone else. The only person she really needed was Seth.

And when she was with him, she tried to be different, too. She tried to be less superficial, more warm and loving. She had gone seventeen years without thinking about anyone but herself. She lived through seventeen years of bad habits; habits that she knew would be hard to break. She couldn't break them, not without help at least.

Cohen had helped her. He helped her be less selfish; he helped her to see the things that really mattered. Not money, not cars, not houses, not even possessions.

Sure, those things helped, but they weren't important in the big picture. The things that mattered above all else were love, friends, and family. She had never had any of those things, not really.

She had no family. Her parents divorced and her mom took off when she was eight; her dad married the Step Monster when she was ten. Just seventeen months after her mother split, her dad was hitched to wife number two.

She remembered wondering how in the world her father could just move on so quickly. Maybe he never loved her mother, she thought. And if that were true, maybe he never loved her, either. They put on a good show, but were their feelings sincere? When he said he loved her more than anything, did he mean it?

Other than Coop, and maybe Holly, at one time, she didn't really have many friends. And even Holly was dropped off that list, once you got down to the true-blue friends, the 'never go behind your back, always loyal and loving, girlfriends before boyfriends, together forever until the end' kind of friends.

How weird was that?

It's not like enough people didn't like her, they did. It's just that Summer tried to not let many people get close to her. She had trust issues and the way she saw it, if she never got attached to anyone then she would never have to care when they weren't there anymore.

Most of her friends were just fake bitches. They either idolized her and copied her every move (which was incredibly annoying), or they were only nice to her so they weren't on her bad side. Yes, most of the girls at Harbor High were scared of Summer. But what could she say? She was notorious for her rage blackouts, and let's face it: nobody (not even the guys) wanted to be on the receiving end of one.

Summer Roberts could kick some ass.

Most of her rage was bottled up, raw emotions. Emotions fueled by the fact that she felt underappreciated and unsatisfied and unloved. That all changed when Chino came to town.

In many ways, Chino's arrival was one of the greatest things to ever happen to her. Once he came, she and Seth were practically forced together. Maybe it was fate, maybe it was destiny, maybe it was Chino and Coop playing matchmaker. Whatever. It didn't matter.

The point was that she had him. She had him, and then she lost him. _Again._

Now that she didn't have him, she couldn't get him out of her head. She never thought of him this much when they were together. It was a constant reminder of what she didn't have, and it was slowly killing her inside.

It seemed like lately, she had been taking cold showers not because she wanted to, but because she had to. She had to, because they reminded her of him.

Lately, she wore her hair up in high ponytails. She played the crappy, 'poor-excuse-for-music' music. She watched episodes of The Valley every chance she got, and would pause it every time Grady Bridges came on the screen for a second, as if Cohen himself were entering her bedroom through the TV.

She reluctantly let the maid change her pillow cases, each time being scared shitless that his smell would be gone when she got them back. She couldn't have that. She needed the smell of Cohen. She needed it like she needed the air outside. Like she needed her Chanel sunglasses, like she needed her Manolo Blahnik shoes.

That's how badly she needed him.

She needed him, Cohen.

Cohen, the kid she never even knew existed until, like, two years ago. The guy who was head over heels in love with her before they had even met. Cohen, who had rejected her at Cotillion and caused her to wear a Wonder Woman costume at Chrismukkah. The one who named his boat after her, and then _ditched _her on that very same boat.

That's where things got tricky.

He had left her. Without so much as a goodbye. No, the letter doesn't count as a goodbye. It was a pansy-ass letter, something so _Coheny_ that she didn't think even Cohen himself could pull it off.

She had spent that whole summer crying and living in past memories. Memories of Seth Cohen. When she thought about how far they had come, from her not knowing his name to her calling it out at night as she dreamt of his, she could almost laugh. Almost. She waited for him for three months. She waited for him to sail back on his boat, waited for him to come back so she could kiss him or kill him, perhaps both.

She had been vibrating at a very low level, mostly because she refused to accept that Seth Cohen abandoned her.

But he did.

He left one letter for her and one for his parents, then he got on the _Summer Breeze_ and sailed away to who knows where, all because Ryan left and he was afraid. To her, Cohen had been a lot of things, but afraid had never been one of them.

How could a guy who was arguably the biggest loser of Harbor High be afraid? He managed to show his face at school every day, despite the constant teasing and name calling. He wasn't afraid of it; he kind of accepted it, as if it were inevitable for him. He wasn't afraid of the other kids, he wasn't afraid when Luke would kick the shit out of him.

But he was afraid of losing her.

It was ridiculous, Summer decided. In those months they had spent apart, she did a lot of soul-searching. She discovered things about herself she had never known before. Things that were mostly centered on Cohen.

How could he be afraid of losing her? He would never lose her. In a way, she had been his from the start. Summer Roberts, the prom queen of Harbor High, belonged to Seth Cohen, the president and only member of the comic book club, the 1996 All School Hide-and-Seek Champion. Yes, even before she knew his name, she was his. She had no objection to that, she couldn't even imagine it any other way. She didn't want it another way. She didn't want to be with some random, sleazy-ass guy. She wanted to be with Cohen, the geekiest, scrawniest, most sarcastic guy she had ever met. Cohen, the cutest, funniest, smartest guy she had ever met. She wanted all of him, right down to the comic books and plastic horses. Okay, so there was only one plastic horse, whatever.

She wanted him, but she wouldn't let herself have him. When he came back, she was with Zach. She had gotten over him, or at least tried her best to. And for a while, it worked. For the tail-end of the summer and the beginning of the school year, she had been _right there _with Zach. He was perfect for her. He was the son of a congressman; he read four newspapers every morning and was on the water polo team. He was gorgeous, he was popular.

He was the anti-Cohen, she had said it herself.

But she didn't want the anti-Cohen. She wanted Cohen. She knew that nothing else would ever be good enough. Summer always got what she wanted, and what she wanted was Seth. Not Zach or anyone else. As crazy and dangerous and un-Summer-like as it was, she would never be satisfied without him. A boy had become the centre of her world...when did that happen?

The thoughts that used to consist of shoes and shopping and makeup and The Valley were now taken up by Cohen, Cohen, Cohen and more Cohen.

That was when she knew, when she _really _knew. She loved him, she needed him.

But by then, he was with Alex. He had moved on, so she should too, right?

Then, after what seemed like years, he and Alex ended things. Summer, being the stubborn girl she was, held out for a little while longer. She wanted all the power, and thought that if she went to Cohen right after the whole Alex thing, that she would be forfeiting any and all power she had in their relationship. She would've been the rebound. She never even considered the fact that Alex had been his rebound from _her_.

After a while, she finally broke up with Zach and went back to Seth as quickly as she could. But soon enough, in true Cohen style, he screwed things up for them. He let her down like he always did. And in true Summer "girl-in-love-with-the-outcast" style, she kept coming back for more.

In total, it took close to eighteen years, three breakups, one completely broken heart, umpteen obstacles and about a gazillion more tears, but they finally got it right.

After the comic book catastrophe, in which Little Miss Vixen (much to Summer's mix of delight and disappointment) almost never amounted to anything, they had gotten it right. They were together, Ryan and Marissa had found each other again, and everything was right with the world. They shared a magical prom that would definitely go down as a top ten memory in the life of Summer Roberts. They were happy.

Why didn't she see it coming?

They had been happy before. They had made top ten memories before. Ryan and Marissa had been together before. And like all good things, it had come to an end.

After Marissa shot Trey, everything went downhill. She killed him, and no amount of Caleb Nichol's money could make it look like self-defense. Hell, Ryan attacked _him_; of course Trey would fight back. And Coop? Where did she come into the equation at all? Nobody could figure out why she was there, and more importantly, why she had felt the need to shoot Trey.

Cohen got all immersed in self-guilt, saying if only he hadn't called Coop, Trey wouldn't have died. If only he hadn't called her, Marissa wouldn't have been a murderer. Summer tried to reassure him, saying if he hadn't called her that Trey would have killed Ryan. She told him he did the right thing, and shouldn't hate himself for it.

When he finally realized that...well, the blame had to lie elsewhere, right? In the most un-Cohen-y move ever made by Cohen, he blamed Summer. They got into a fight and he said a ton of things he didn't mean (or maybe he did mean them?), like if Summer had never came to him saying he had to tell Ryan about Trey and Marissa, the whole thing never would have happened. _He _was the one who insisted on telling Ryan, not her. But he didn't listen. He didn't care.

She cried, slapped him, told him he was a fucking maniac and to never talk to her again. He obliged. For the first three weeks of their summer vacation, they didn't speak. They didn't see each other that much, either. Only at Coop's hearing, in which Sandy was her lawyer, where she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Sandy did a totally awesome job of defending her, and the jury really took pity on her.

Summer still couldn't believe it all happened. Sure, Newport had been witness to some pretty fucked up shit (like Jimmy embezzling and getting the shit kicked out of him by Holly's dad at Cotillion, Julie marrying Caleb Nichol, Luke's dad coming out, Summer falling in love with Cohen, the whole Oliver thing, Luke and Julie doing it, Kirsten's admittance to rehab, Caleb's love child—that Lindsay chick, and Julie's porno movie to name a few), but this was something else entirely.

Marissa Cooper, best friend of thirteen years to Summer Roberts, was a murderer. She _murdered _someone. She took their _life_. All because of Chino. All because she loved him more than Summer knew it was possible to love someone. Could Summer loved Cohen the same way Coop loved Chino?

It was a definite possibility, but that was all Summer would admit to for now.

After that day in court (where Marissa was sentenced to 18 months probation, 150 hours of community service, and a $300,000 fine), Seth and Summer had to face each other. They had to face all their messed up problems and skeletons that were hidden in the closet. They went back to Summer's house, and had it out. Everything was brought to the surface again. Nothing was left out.

They fought about Cohen leaving her to sail to Catalina or Portland or wherever the hell he went. She bitched about the comic book thing, he yelled about how she just didn't understand him, or even attempt to. They fought about recent things, like Marissa and Zach. They argued over totally ancient things, like Anna and Danny. They screamed at each other for what seemed like days, but were only a few hours. It was the hottest few hours of Summer's life. They wound up having sex on her bed...and her couch...and her floor.

And then, after what could be described as the hottest make-up sex of their lives, they argued some more. Now it was about little things, like how he was self-centered and she was superficial. They got right down to the nitty-gritty, everything they ever disliked about each other. The issue of Cohen loving her but never talking to her came up. The disagreements over Ryan and Marissa being a couple, the constant ploys to make the other jealous, all came into play.

In the end, it boiled down to one thing: they had never, and probably would never, have anything in common. They would never like the same things, or even care about each other's interests. The only thing they liked about each other _was_ each other. It might be confusing, but their whole relationship had been one big migraine to begin with. They were in love, despite all of the things (and there were a ton of things) that they hated about each other.

It was true; they couldn't have been more different. So why, Summer wondered, were they drawn to each other at all?

She loved his free spirit, his wittiness, his ability to make things fun. He loved the sixth-grade Summer. The Summer he saw through an outsider's eyes. He never knew the real her, in all the years that he loved her from afar. And when you don't know much about someone, you can imagine that, deep down, they're just like you. That must have been what Cohen did, she decided. Then when he really got to know her, she was just a bit let down. To her, there was no way that someone as amazing as him could love someone like her anyway.

They really _didn't_ have a single thing in common. It wasn't just a figure of speech, or an over-exaggeration. Not one thing, if you really thought about it. When they were together, they never talked about their similar interests, because there were none. They mostly talked about Ryan or Marissa or the latest scandal to sweep through Newport.

Once they realized this, it was a lot easier to identify the things they hated about each other. They were no longer scared that they might destroy their relationship, because there was no relationship. Not really. Since they reached this decision, they were free to let the shit fly and the chips fall where they may.

Summer said she hated his constant sarcasm and his ability to ruin any and every moment. She hated his need to have attention fixated on him, and the way he ran away like a little bitch whenever the going got tough. Seth said he hated her whininess, how spoiled she was. He hated how everything she did was a show put on for other people, and how she always cared about what others thought.

They were opposites: he was smart; she...wasn't the brightest when it came to school and such. He was original and _slightly _unpopular; she was like every other Newport conformist who only cared about shoes and parties and celebrities, and was always the centre of attention.

He was used to his life, she was used to hers. They didn't want to change or compromise their lives in any way. But their lives were very different, and were leading down two different paths.

They concluded that they were over, finished, caput. This time, they agreed, it was final. This time, they would do what they could never do before: put the issue of "them" to rest. They were no longer a couple.

The "Seth and Summer" relationship, as a whole, had been put in the past. And you have to leave the past in the past, right? They decided it would be easiest for the both of them if things went back to the way they were before. Before they knew each other, before they loved each other. They made a pact, and both were determined to abide by it.

Sticking to the pact meant they wouldn't kiss, wouldn't laugh, they would even go as far as to not talk. They wouldn't be anything to one another, because there just wasn't room for them in each other's lives. Their roads started off a million miles away, merged into a single road for a brief lapse in time, and then separated just as quickly as they had joined.

Seth and Summer were no more.

But she still loved him.

He still loved her. At least, she hoped he did.

She still thought about him. She hoped he thought about her. She still cried over him. She hoped he wasn't done crying over her.

She tortured herself over their breakup, but she hoped he didn't do the same. She loved him, and she didn't want him to be hurting, especially because of her. No, she had hurt him enough already. It was best if he just forgot about her altogether, she supposed.

For the first time in her life, she was thinking of someone other than herself. It was a foreign concept for her, but it was one she could get used to. Especially if it might make Cohen come back to her.

It was true. Try as she might, she would never _not _want to be with him. She would always want him, always need him. She would always say a prayer at night, asking God to bring him back to her. But, as Summer had learned a long time ago, God didn't answer those kinds of prayers. He especially didn't answer them if you were heartless and superficial like Summer was.

God never answered them when she prayed for her mom to come back. Why should He give Cohen back if He wouldn't even return her mother to her? God was cruel; God didn't want her to be happy.

Did she even deserve to be happy?

She used to think so, but now she wasn't so sure. The only thing that would truly make her happy was Cohen, and where was he now?

If she had Cohen, all would be right with the world. But she didn't get Cohen, in the end they decided to go back to Summer ignoring him and him pining after her, the way it had been way back when. Only that isn't how it worked out. To Summer, it seemed like he was the one doing the ignoring, and she was the one doing the pining.

If she were like Seth, she would point out the irony in the whole situation. But she wasn't anything like Seth, she knew that. That was, after all, the reason they weren't together. It was the reason she was alone, and why she would probably stay that way until the day she died. Sure, she could get married to some rich, good-looking guy and have a good life, but it wouldn't be the same. She would always be alone in her heart, because there was a hole there that only Cohen could fill.

When she was little, she used to believe that her life would be a fairytale. She used to imagine a knight in shining armor riding in on a white horse and sweeping her off her feet. As she got older, that perception of her future life was slightly refined. When she entered high school, she was no longer waiting for a knight in shining armor; it was more like a particularly gorgeous water polo player in a sexy car. But in the end, neither scenario was the ideal dream for her.

She knew now that, all her life, she had been waiting for someone else. She had been waiting for that pale, scrawny boy with curly brown hair with a plastic horse named Captain Oats to come and take her away from Newport on his trusty skateboard. She was waiting for Seth to come and take her away from the craziness and the scandals and the parties and everything else that had to do with the whole 'Newport Beach' scene. She didn't want it anymore. She wanted him, and only him.

She was stupid. For a while there, she actually believed that they were meant to be. No matter what was thrown at them, they managed to find their way back together. But there was no way they could find their way back now. Not after the things they said, the things they did.

Maybe, she concluded, they weren't _meant to be_. Maybe they were _meant not to be_. Did that make sense? Of course it did. That was exactly what she and Cohen were. They were meant to _not _be. Not be together, not be friends, not be acquaintances. They were from two different worlds, worlds to which a gap could never be forged.

How did she not see it before?

Every time they found happiness, it seemed like there was always another problem lurking right around the corner. Their whole relationship had been plagued with problems from the start.

There were problems such as her high-status and popularity. Problems like Anna and Alex and Chino and Zach and Danny and Reed. Then there was the time they spent in Tijuana and the summer he spent in Portland, and the Valentine's Day she _almost _spent in Italy, and the Spring Break he spent in Miami. There was the whole anxiety thing because his mom was away in rehab and the whole trust issue because her mom took off when she was eight. That was the thing that really made it hard for Summer to trust him. He had run off once, how could she be sure he wouldn't do it again? He gave her his word, but what good was his word? It was pretty much shot to hell after all they had been through.

After all that, it became clear that fate did not want them to be together. It was fate, or perhaps just some other divine force out there. Either way, something was always intervening.

As she was once told, you can't fight fate.

Maybe that force knew better. Maybe it knew that Summer was destined to get hurt by Cohen, and was trying to stop that from happening. Maybe she should have listened to that in the first place, before she let herself love him.

But then again, wasn't it _her _choice? If she wanted to risk getting hurt, just for the shot at a life with Cohen, shouldn't it be her decision to make?

Exactly three weeks after they made their pact, Summer reached a decision as to whether or not she should break it. She had run into Cohen at the Bait Shop (she didn't think he still worked there but apparently he was hired again) and they were forced to talk. Well, they weren't forced, but there wasn't really a way around it.

She told him she missed him. He told her he had been thinking about her a lot. She decided to not tell him that she thought about him too. After all the shit they had been through, underneath it all, it was still all about the power struggle. There wasn't a relationship there, but they were still fighting for the control of whatever they had left.

They talked for a long time. He told her he had been working a lot, mostly to keep himself occupied. He said the more he thought about her, the more he had to fight the urge to get on his skateboard and ride over to her house. He even admitted that he still wanted her, and was all for breaking the pact if she agreed.

But she couldn't agree.

She hugged him, told him that she loved him, but they weren't right for each other. He protested, claimed he loved her and that nothing else mattered. She grabbed his hand, looking him straight in the eye, and told him that they weren't meant to be. He insisted that she was wrong, begged her to reconsider. But she had done a lot of thinking, and her mind was made up.

She told him that if they were truly meant to be, things wouldn't have been so hard. She argued that if they should've been together, they would've been. But instead, they weren't. They had broken up time after time after time and she couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen again.

He said that no matter what, he wouldn't give up. He said if he had to, he would chain himself to her bedroom door. He told her that her father really wouldn't like that, so she should definitely reconsider and save her dad the coronary.

She hugged him again, and whispered into his ear that she was sorry. With that, she turned around and walked away, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall.

"Come on," he called after her. "I know you can't live without me, Sum."

He was right, but it wasn't that simple.

_Nothing _was that simple, as she had come to know. If Cohen really wanted her, he would fight for her. But she refused to let herself fall for him again if it wasn't going to happen. She refused to give herself false hope, thinking that he would come back for her. She had no problem with letting go of everything and just being with Cohen, but he had to do it first. She needed proof if she, Princess Sparkle, Cohen and Captain Oats were ever going to live happily ever after.

Summer had grown up with a very high self-esteem. She never thought she needed to change herself, never felt the need to. Coop totally changed when she started dating Luke way back when, and Summer practically staged an intervention when it happened. She couldn't figure out why someone as great as Marissa would change just for a dumb guy. If a guy didn't like her for her, they could go fuck themselves. That had been her motto all through life.

But things were different now, and now, she _would_ change herself. She would change herself at the drop of a hat for Cohen. She would change everything about herself for his love and acceptance.

But he didn't want her to change, and that was why she loved him. He would rather never be with the Summer he loved, than have the Summer he loved change herself for anyone, especially him.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized they did have things in common. Maybe she preferred to read magazines over comic books, maybe he preferred video games to shopping. Maybe they didn't appreciate the same music or watch the same movies. And maybe they never would. But that didn't really matter to her. They had one thing in common that outweighed all the bad stuff, all the insecurities, all the fights and nasty things they've said.

They needed each other.

Because, for some fucked up reason or another, they were in love. Summer didn't know how, she didn't know why, but her heart had picked Seth Cohen to love. And if she couldn't trust her own heart, then what _could_ she trust?

"_I know you can't live without me, Sum."_

How had she lived before Cohen? She didn't know.

How did she live after Cohen? She still didn't know.

But she did.

Mostly because there was no other choice (suicide is so tacky, she would say) but also because part of her was still waiting. Part of her was waiting for the day she and Cohen would find a way to make it work.

Maybe it would never work. But maybe, just maybe, it would. She would hold onto that. She had to, because there was nothing else for her. If there was no Cohen, there was nothing.

There would never be another person for her, besides Seth Cohen.

……………………………………………………………

**Review! And go check out the companion piece to this, called "Summer."**


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